In the aftermath of a 30-second earthquake, Angelenos wake up to anxious, sometimes off-kilter episodes in their lives

Diane Stillman is watching a very large dresser with attached mirror hurtle toward her across her bedroom. Having lived in Los Angeles all her life, the 43-year-old paralegal knows she is in an earthquake. And she herself isn't hurt. What worries her is her mother, 83 and legally blind, living several blocks away. The trick, once Diane gets out from under the dresser, is leaving her apartment in the Northridge Meadows complex in L.A.'s San Fernando Valley and making sure her mother is all right. As Stillman crosses her bedroom, she thinks, this must have been a big one. Nearly everything...